I was sitting in the exam hall, on the second bench of the second row from the door. My classmate–Gino Navarro sat on the second bench of the third row. The only person between us was a junior, an eight grader who sat beside me.
Gino asked for the answer to the third question–"How many levels are there in TOC by default in LibreOffice Writer?"
That was an easy question, the answer was 10 of course, but I wasn't going to tell him that. I've had enough of him. Laughing at my while I was crying because a bottle hit me, right near my right eye? No way.
"Hey-! Psst, Mutya! Hey! Why are you ignoring me??"
He kept on calling me, over and over again, but I ignored him. I hate him.
I finished the paper in fifteen minutes, it had taken longer than I had expected, but it was still quick, and I took pride in that. Bored, I decided to draw on my paper to pass time, and soon enough the hour was over.
Walking out the gates, I couldn't hep but feel tense, as if I was being followed... Why?
Before I could cross the road, I suddenly felt an arm coming up from behind me and pulling me back by my hair. And before I could turn around to see who it was, I heard an all too familiar voice that made dread pool in my stomach.
"How dare you ignore me? How impolite of you to leave your dear friend all alone during his test hm?" He asked and I finally got to see his face, although it was as ugly as always.
"And why shouldn't I ignore you Gino?" I couldn't help but bite back, I wasn't going to let him hurt me anymore.
He pulled my hair harshly, causing my head to tilt back, and my body to stumble. My hands subconsciously reached out over his, to shove them away but to no avail. The only thing it did was to make him tighten his grip on my hair. He should be glad it was short, or else I would've ended him then and there.
"If I fail the test, it's on you." I won't let you get away with this. Monitor. He spat out the title as if it was an insult. To him, it was... But not for me.
Students had gathered around us by now, watching, whispering... Some even had their phones out to record such a scene.
He pushed, hard across the street and I fell down on the concrete ground, inches away from falling into a gutter. How dare he?
Walking closer to me, he kneeled down, leaning closer to me, he whispered in my ear.
"You'll regret this dear monitor, if I fail. And even if I don't, you'd still regret this, so just be a good girl and drop this attitude."
That was it. Before my mind could reguster what was happening, my hand was already raised, slapling him hard across his left cheek. Hard enough that it left a stinging red mark of my hand. That was satisfying.
But of course, every action has an equal reaction. The slap came back, harder than the one I had given, my cheek was stinging, and burning. I placed my left hand over the mark before I was pulled back to my feet before being shoved onto the wall of the house that was behind me and a bit far from the gutter.
I landed with a loud thud, earning collective gasps of the students around us, but no one dared to stop. It was Gino who we were talking about after all.
The school building onr block away was starting to blur out, and so was everything else around me. And soon enough, I felt my mind go blank as I fell on the ground, before I could eben try to get up, everything turned black.